More than one hundred leaders are in New York today to sign the Paris climate agreement. CFR.org interviewed me on the agreement, what’s happened since it was signed, and where multilateral climate efforts go next. You can read the interview here.

Eduardo Porter has a column in the New York Times today arguing that “Liberal Biases, Too, May Block Progress on Climate Change”. (Yes, that’s a headline that he didn’t write, but it’s a good summary of the column’s message.) I’m on board with that bottom line. But his central example of liberal hostility to the “the scientific consensus” unintentionally highlights a different problem: conflation of science with values and judgment. Read more »

President Obama arrives to deliver remarks on clean energy after a tour of a solar power array at Hill Air Force Base (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

This post is co-written with Sagatom Saha, research associate for energy and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In his final State of the Union address, President Obama celebrated the remarkable growth of clean energy, particularly solar power, which in 2015 added 7.4 GW of capacity in the United States and 55 GW globally. However, he also omitted an equally remarkable trend: over the same year, the Global Solar Index, which tracks the overall industry, collapsed, losing nearly half its value from a mid-year high. Read more »

News outlets are reporting that a congressional budget deal could end the oil export ban in exchange for extension of the Investment and Production Tax Credits (ITC and PTC) that support solar and wind energy. Here I want to lay out what ending the oil export ban could mean for markets, climate, and geopolitics. (I suspect Varun may weigh in later on the ITC/PTC extensions if and when details emerge.) Short version: Little immediate impact on anything; a possible boost on the order of a few hundred thousand barrels a day to U.S. oil production over the longer run; a factor of perhaps fifty smaller impact on carbon dioxide emissions than the Clean Power Plan and CAFE (fuel economy standards); and a mixed bag for geopolitics and trade talks. Read more »

LE BOURGET, FRANCE – The Paris climate summit (also known as COP 21) has adopted a new “Paris Agreement”. The agreement has the potential to mark a laudable and historic shift in how the world negotiates cooperation on climate change. It does not justify the over-the-top claims that some are making – that it spells the end of fossil fuels or assures that temperatures will rise no more than two degrees – but those who negotiated it never believed it could. Nor does it deserve to be pilloried (a rarer but still real reaction) for failing to save the planet – an entirely unreasonable expectation. Instead it begins to set up a framework for transparency and review of countries’ nationally driven emissions-cutting efforts and a process for encouraging stronger efforts over time. In doing so it meets the modest but important goals that were sensibly set for the negotiations. Only time will tell, though, whether the full promise of the Paris Agreement is achieved. Read more »

Climate change is nothing new in northern Nigeria, writes John Campbell, senior fellow for Africa Studies and former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, and its influence in local conflicts can already be felt. In his contribution to ourguestseries surrounding the UN climate conference in Paris, Ambassador Campbell notes that the changing climate is, if not the cause, then certainly part of the context of the rise of militant groups like Boko Haram. Read more »

The UN climate talks in Paris are just one part of the international climate policy regime, write StewartPatrick, director of the Program on International Institutions and Global Governance,and Research Associate Naomi Egel. In this post, part of our ongoingguest series on the Paris summit, they note other institutions contributing to the climate policy process and highlight several climate policy options from CFR’s Global Governance Monitor.Read more »

New Independent Task Force Reports

India now matters to U.S. interests in virtually every dimension. This Independent Task Force report assesses the current situation in India and the U.S.-India relationship, and suggests a new model for partnership with a rising India.

Rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries are increasing faster than in wealthier countries. The report outlines a plan for collective action on this growing epidemic.

The authors argue that the United States has responded inadequately to the rise of Chinese power and recommend placing less strategic emphasis on the goal of integrating China into the international system and more on balancing China's rise.

Campbell evaluates the implications of the Boko Haram insurgency and recommends that the United States support Nigerian efforts to address the drivers of Boko Haram, such as poverty and corruption, and to foster stronger ties with Nigerian civil society.